High School Me

My 18th birthday

My high school choir teacher is retiring this year, and a bunch of my old high school friends are getting together to surprise him at his last concert.  I wish I could go.  I'm keeping my eyes and mind open to ways to make it work, but right now I don't see how that might be possible. 

I started high school as a freshman at Lancaster High School almost sixteen years ago.  Let that sink in for a minute.  I was fourteen. 

We wore uniforms.  We were the first public  school in our district to have uniforms (I guess I don't need to say public, all the schools in our district are public).  And the last.  While my sister was a student there they relaxed the "dress code" (Which we all know was a uniform)

If I could tell my high school self a few things:

• Take that scarf thing off your head now.  (I honestly do not know why I had that on my head, but its the only picture I could find on facebook of me in my school uniform)
• Don't worry about who is popular and who isn't.  You're going to become friends with so many "popular" kids during the last two weeks of school and you're going to wish you had gotten to know them sooner.  
• You're going to be in choir all four years.  Don't keep quitting during registration and then going back to Mr. Landrus and begging for your spot back after the concert reminds you how much you love to perform.  This is why I never got to be section leader!! (At least that's what I tell myself.)
• Grow out your bangs.  Maybe during the summer.  Don't listen to everyone who says you look better with them.  I've got 12 years of pictures that prove otherwise.  
• Don't let people make feel lame.  You're not.  You'll have a lot of friends in college and after.
• Enjoy being this tan.  And skinny.  
• And enjoy California.  Every now and then I still get struck with homesickness, and I've been gone for twelve years!

What would you tell your high school self?